Life-science research and biosecurity concerns in the Russian Federation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the current state of the life sciences in the Russian Federation, which has potential health-security and biosecurity implications. Research involving advanced biotechnologies present opportunities for public-health advancement, but their dual-use capabilities raise biosecurity concerns that carry global economic and security implications. While experts have raised such concerns about possible Russian misuse of biotechnologies, Russia is not a top-tier nation for life sciences research, by many metrics. A better understanding of the current landscape of biotechnology and life-science research and investment in the Russian Federation will help to identify potential areas of concern and opportunities for international scientific engagement. This work builds on the substantial legacy of Raymond A. Zilinskas in his work to describe and analyze biodefense and biosecurity concerns in the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.

KEYWORDS:

• biological weapons
• biosecurity
• Russia
• dual-use
• biotechnology

Scholarly attention has recently been drawn to the advances in the life sciences and their potential biosecurity concerns in the Russian Federation, most notably in the 2018 publication of Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia by Raymond A. Zilinskas and Philippe Mauger.¹ This book documents in authoritative detail the build-up and modernization of Russia’s biodefense establishment under Vladimir Putin’s administration. The volume starts with a concerning statement made in March 12, 2012 by Russian Federation Minister of Defense Serdyukov about how a government plan was being prepared for “the development of weapons based on new physical principles: radiation, geophysical wave, genetic, psychophysical, etc.”² A “genetic” weapon would be in violation of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC).

Zilinskas and Mauger uncover material throughout the book that suggests questionably treaty-compliant activities are ongoing. They cross-reference lists of scientific institutes in Russia with publications by affiliated scientists, and note a precipitous drop in research publications from one institution, which may indicate a shift to classified work.³ They also provide a holistic view of those military institutions and facilities within the biosecurity infrastructure in Russian history that were known to engage in biological-weapons development.

Additional open-source data points present a worrisome picture about the state of Russian Federation obligations under the BWC. A May 27, 2018, news report of Ukrainian allegations that Russia is “returning to the Soviet-era development of a deadly Ebola-smallpox virus mix” was submitted by Ukraine to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in a report. Ukrainian delegation head Iryna Friz stated that such a technical effort was “confirmed by the analysis of more than 5,000 tenders in public procurement and scientific activity of several Russian institutions managed by the Russian defense ministry.”⁴ Given that the Ukrainian government may have other motives for these allegations, and that the biochemistry of such a viral mix would be technically near impossible, this claim may be easily dismissed. More recently, however, in August 2020, the US Department of Commerce added three Russian institutions to its “Entity List” because they were “associated with the Russian biological weapons program.”⁵ As Dr. Christopher Ashley Ford, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, remarked on November 12, 2020, “This action highlighted in public for the first time the fact that there is a Russian biological weapons program, and all should take note of this.”⁶ There is no open-source independent validation of this claim, but it colors how Russia’s current biotechnology investments should be viewed.

Relying on an ingrained culture of secrecy and obfuscation, the Soviet Union operated a covert, well-resourced offensive biological weapons (BW) research-and-development (R&D) program for decades.⁷ Upon his ascension to the presidency in 1999, Vladimir Putin rescinded the Boris Yeltsin government’s admission that the Soviet Union engaged in these activities.⁸ Importantly, while Soviet defectors had disclosed the existence of part of that offensive program—Biopreparat—the Russian military’s microbiology laboratories and other facilities have never been opened to international inspection.⁹ Recent Russian Federation activities suggest a diminished regard for international norms with direct relevance to unconventional weapons. For example, Russia’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad has enabled the use of chemical weapons of different types and quantities against civilian populations.¹⁰ Russia has also stonewalled attempts by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to attribute CW attacks to the Assad government.¹¹ Furthermore, the attempted 2018 assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the United Kingdom and the 2020 poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Russia, both using novichok, a next-generation nerve agent, indicates the willingness of the Russian government to consider and use of unconventional weapons.¹²

Given this recent history, as well as the Soviet Union’s previous BW program, further examination of life-science and biotechnology research within the Russian Federation is warranted. This article seeks to add to the knowledge surrounding Russia’s capabilities and investments in the life sciences and biotechnology, and to identify potential areas of concern and opportunities for international scientific engagement to mitigate them. Zilinskas and Mauger, who were able to review numerous Russian government and media publications, statements, and documents, laid the foundation for understanding how political and government leadership strategies within the Russian government could drive specific biotechnology- and scientific-research initiatives. To complement their work on possible Russian biothreat concerns, this analysis seeks to focus directly on the capabilities, investment, and published life-science research from the civilian sector in the Russian Federation, and offers a mixed picture about Russian capabilities in the biotechnological area.

Life-sciences decline in the Russian Federation

In 2017, Anna Grebenyuk from the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Nikolai Ravin from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in Moscow identified the Russian biotech sector as an area for potential development, noting that Russia imports “more than 89 percent of biotechnological products” used there, and that the Russian Federation’s R&D in this sector has struggled in comparison with other nations.¹³ The study specifically identified areas for development that one would expect to be more developed in Russia but where it lags behind the EU, including areas of “high-performance genomics and post-genomics research platforms, systems and structural biology, microbial metabolic engineering, plant biotechnology and microbial strains and consortia for development of symbiotic plant–microbial communities.”¹⁴ These specific scientific endeavors where Russia lags behind could be considered potential areas for international engagement with Russia.

While biotechnology research had been prioritized in Russia, after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Russian scientists, especially those of higher caliber and recent graduates, emigrated to the countries that offered well-paid positions. There was a significant brain drain, many researchers leaving for Israel and other Western countries.¹⁵ Russian attempts at reform and investment in the biological sciences have largely been top-down approaches, which have met with mixed success and at times alienated the academic and scientific communities, hindering progress, as noted by Zilinskas and Mauger.¹⁶

In spite of major advances in the biological sciences over recent decades, the number of government-employed researchers in Russia has remained consistently around 130,000 during the last ten years, a third of the number of government-employed researchers in China in 2012. While China’s number of researchers, regardless of employer, remains below Russia’s, in 2012 (the last year with available data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD]) China had almost triple the number of government-employed researchers in Russia, and was on a steep upward trajectory on this metric.¹⁷

Since 2005, Putin has attempted to drive investment and advancements in the Russian biotechnology field through strategic documents, dedicated funding, and several federal programs. The “BIO-2020” strategy launched in 2012, a 1.178-billion-ruble program (equivalent to over $18 million) encompassing eight major focus activities, including biopharmaceuticals and biomedicine, received 22 percent of the Bio2020 budget.¹⁸ Though this was not a very large investment, the strategy was significant in that it was the first post-Soviet-era strategy that identified biotechnology as an area that was important to the future of Russia.¹⁹ The final year of the program was 2020, and while the strategy did not achieve all of its ambitious goals, it demonstrated successes in some areas such as vaccine and complicated-biologics (monoclonal antibody) development.²⁰ Russia also implemented several programs to retain scientists in the country and lure back those who had left, the primary such program being Mega-Grants, launched in 2010, which was allocated a budget of 11 billion rubles ($140 million) over a three-year period.²¹ Among the program goals were to “bring world-renowned scientists, including scientists from among Russian citizens residing abroad, to Russian institutions of higher learning … and to create scientific research laboratories capable of competing with the world’s leading laboratories.”²² This was an important effort, but paled in comparison with similar recruitment strategies in China, such as the Thousand Talents program, in which China invested around $2 trillion.²³

In 2013, Putin announced a series of reforms of the RAS, including the establishment of a new government entity, the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, responsible for managing the financing of RAS research. This institution “decides how much it will dispense to institutes for salaries, travel, equipment, supplies,” and requires scientists to provide up-front quantitative metrics on proposed studies that “discourage high-risk, high-reward fundamental research,” which discourages scientific innovation.²⁴ This was followed by further announcements in 2015 that expanded the scope of a 1993 law requiring scientists to seek approval from the Federal Security Service (FSB) before submitting publications.²⁵ The 1993 law had required publications “that might have military or industrial significance … mainly nuclear, biological, and chemical ones,” to be approved by the FSB prior to submission to any publication.²⁶ The new law further expanded the approval requirements for any submission to a journal or conference which could “be used to develop … new products.” Scientists argue that the broad law “leaves interpretation to the security services and science administrators,” rather than scientists, creating a more burdensome environment for scientific publication and research.²⁷ These changes are unlikely to attract and retain top Russian scientists, who would probably prefer to work in environments with less bureaucratic oversight where both the science and scientists drive resource allocation. Funding of and investment in the biotechnology field remains a challenge in the Russian Federation, despite recent attempts to overcome historic budget shortfalls. Compared with the United States and China, Russia’s share of GDP spent on R&D remains stagnant, having increased from 1.03 percent in 2007 to just 1.1 percent in 2017 (China and the US consistently spend more than 2 percent of GDP).²⁸

Russia has also struggled to compete on the global stage with its university system. According to the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS) list of global universities, in 2019 Russia had only one university, Lomonosov Moscow State University, listed in the top one hundred.²⁹ From 1995 to 2015, Russian ranked third among European countries for individuals on temporary visas earning science and engineering degrees in the United States, with a total of 2,882, of which only forty were in the field of biological science.³⁰ While the United States is not the only place in the world to receive a biological-sciences education, the high global ranking of the United States in the biological sciences indicates the relative priority of biological education and training for Russia. In 2014, Russia ranked behind China, India, and the United States in the number of first university degrees in the fields of science and engineering (S&E) and ranked third in the total number of S&E doctoral degrees.³¹ Zilinskas and Mauger also conducted analysis using Science-Expert.ru to aggregate advanced degrees in the fields of biological and pharmaceutical science from 1994 to 2015, and found that “Russian students have had less interest to pursue research careers in the life sciences in the past decade.”³² Russia faces significant challenges not only in preventing the emigration of life-science researchers but also in inspiring the next generation to study in the field.

According to the SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR), which uses a variety of indicators to rank scientific-research institutions globally, no Russian university or institute ranked in the top-ten list of institutions in 2020.³³ Out of the 241 Russian institutions listed in the database, only one, the RAS, ranked within the top 100 institutions. When one narrows the database to look specifically at health institutions—and excluding government and higher-education institutions—the highest-rated Russian health institute ranked 639th in the world.³⁴ One positive trend observed through the SCImago database is that from 2009 to 2020, all of the top Russian institutions improved in their rankings, some by over 200 places.

The SIR rankings are determined by many institution characteristics, including publications, patent filings, citations in other scientific work, and details such as the affiliation of the corresponding author of scientific-journal articles with a particular research institution; the relative ranking of institutions is a reflection of many aspects of scientific advance. All of Russia’s top-ranked universities dropped in the innovation category (these metrics are tied to patent applications) during the decade recorded in the database; some dropped more than 250 places in the rankings. These drops are striking when compared with the trends in top universities in the United States and especially in China. In 2019, the United States had fifty-four universities in the top 100 and China had ten. In the category of innovation, China held the number-one and -two spots in the world, the Chinese Academy of Sciences having held the top-ranking position since 2017, and the United States held the number-three and -four spots. Russia’s highest-ranking institution for innovation came in at 312 in 2019.³⁵

In a 2013 article, “Russian Science and Technology Is Still Having Problems—Implications for Defense Research,” Roger Roffey, a senior scientist at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, characterizes the Russian innovation system with the following details: ^“R&D is dominated by government funding and government organizations to a greater extent than in other countries; the high proportion of military research is a legacy of the former Soviet R&D system; R&D activities are controlled from the top down and have not to a large extent been reformed; and research is fragmented and poorly linked to the education system and market needs.”³⁶ Again, these are not descriptions of a thriving Russian biotechnology sector.

One area where Russian scientists showed improvement and not decline was in numbers of peer-reviewed publications. According to the National Science Board 2018 S&E Indicators Report, while Russia lags far behind other major global actors, Russia ranked in the top ten in the world for numbers of S&E articles from 2006 to 2016.³⁷ The report used the Scopus database to review over 2.3 million peer-reviewed articles, finding that Russian research publications increased by around 7 percent annually between 2006 to 2010, and the total number of annual publications doubled in the ten-year period, from 29,369 in 2006 to 59,134 in 2016.³⁸ According to InCites Essential Science Indicators using the Web of Science database, Russia produced 325,786 papers with a ratio of 6.71 citations per paper, trailing China with 2,449,685 papers with a ratio of 10.42 citations per paper.³⁹ Highly cited papers reflect the top 1 percent of articles by field and publication year, selected from the most recent ten years of data.

Current Russian scientific publication data should also be understood in the context of the Soviet Union, which had a poor record of publishing.⁴⁰ Zilinskas and Mauger point out that much of Russia’s research output was not indexed in publication databases until recently.⁴¹ One way to ensure a more comprehensive search of Russian literature can be achieved by using Russia’s Scientific Electronic Library (eLibrary.ru), but the number of publications in the database can be inconsistent and change over time, making the data unreliable for any form of statistical analysis.⁴² Equally, when using databases such as SCImago, it is important to remember that all such rankings have their limitations, particularly in their reproducibility, and should not be the only method of analysis.⁴³ For that reason, the trends and identified institutions should serve as a starting point for further quantitative and qualitative analysis of research publications from the institutions. In other words, Russia’s publication output may not be truly indicative of research output and so further research is required to confirm that indicator trends are real.

The Russian Federation and gene editing

Restrictive laws on gene-editing research are a barrier to biotechnological development. In 2016, the Russian Federation enacted a law that allows the cultivation of genetically modified organisms in Russia only for research purposes, which limits the growth of the Russian biotechnology industry, particularly in comparison with the much more permissive regulatory systems in China and the United States. The law defined genetically modified organisms as those “that cannot result from natural processes.”⁴⁴ However, in April 2019, the Russian government decreed that gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR (which stands for clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats) would not necessarily need to insert foreign DNA and thus could be considered to be non-GMO and allowed for research and commercial purposes. This decision was followed by the announcement of a new program to create “ten new varieties of gene-edited plants and animals by 2020—and another 20 by 2027.”⁴⁵ The new program, which will receive 111 billion rubles (nearly $1.4 million) in funding, could enable the production and sale of certain gene-edited products that would have been banned under the 2016 law.⁴⁶

Jumping on this expansion of permissible R&D, in June 2019, Denis Rebrikov, a Russian molecular biologist and head of a genome-editing lab at Russia’s largest fertility clinic, the Kulakov National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Perinatology in Moscow, announced that he was considering conducting human-germline genome-editing experiments, similar to the controversial gene-editing research involving embryos that Chinese researcher He Jiankui revealed in the fall of 2018.⁴⁷ Rebrikov had done some scientific work targeting the same CCR5 gene as He, which may lead to resistance to HIV infections, publishing his strategy in the Bulletin of the Russian State Medical University, entitled “The Efficacy of CRISPR-Cas9-Mediated Induction of the CCR5delta32 Mutation in the Human Embryo.”⁴⁸ He has said that he hopes to use the technology to prevent inherited blindness.⁴⁹ Currently in Russia, it is illegal to gene-edit embryos; the Russian government would have to issue new rules or guidance before Rebrikov could begin his work.⁵⁰ The Russian Health Ministry has since stated that they support the position of the World Health Organization that heritable changes to the genome should not be performed at this time, and that such work would be premature.⁵¹

Conclusions

Russia is not considered a top-tier nation for life-science research. Assessments of top nations in biotechnology and the life sciences from a variety of sources measuring R&D expenditure, scientific publications, patents, workforce indicators, PhDs awarded, and other performance indicators regularly include the United States, China, France, Korea, Japan, Germany, and India. Russia is rarely included.⁵² This is particularly apparent when one compares Russia’s progress with that of China, which outpaces Russia in almost every category.⁵³

The causes and determinants of Russia’s challenges in advancing in the biotechnology field are multifaceted and influenced greatly by senior Russian officials and excessive bureaucracy. In the years following the fall of the Soviet Union, a lack of funding and a brain drain of scientists had a debilitating effect on the Russian biotechnology field, which led to its decline. Efforts to revitalize the field by both Putin and Medvedev have met with some, but limited, success.

International tensions between the United States and Russia will prove challenging for bilateral and multilateral engagements on topics involving biotechnology and biosecurity. Nonetheless, US attempts to engage with Russian institutions and scientists are important and should continue to be pursued. The interest of Russian officials in sparking growth in civilian biotechnology also provides opportunities for productive engagement with US scientists, as there is a clear interest in Russia in growing the biotechnology sector. Programs that bring together scientists from Russia with US scientists should be a priority, as it can be helpful to diplomacy if scientists work together on uncontroversial issues regarding biological sciences research advances or norms for the conduct of research.⁵⁴

A thorough review of published scientific work by Russian scientists will require additional research, including an examination of Russian-language scientific journals and interviews with Russian scientists. A more thorough analysis of gene-editing technologies and vaccine development in scientific publications and information on the institutions working in these fields would be valuable, and could provide additional insight into Russia’s efficacy in improving its life-science capabilities. However, by a variety of metrics described in this piece, Russia does not currently have a biotechnology sector comparable to that of the United States. Russia's interest in developing that sector could be the start of fruitful diplomatic efforts.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for and continue to learn from Raymond A. Zilinskas’s efforts to describe and analyze biodefense and biosecurity concerns in the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.

Notes

1 Raymond A. Zilinskas and Philippe Mauger, Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2018).

2 Ibid., p. 1.

3 Ibid., pp. 145–46.

4 Unian Information Agency, “Russia Renewing Development of Ebola–Smallpox Virus Mix, Ukraine Suggests,” May 27, 2018, <www.unian.info/politics/10131959-russia-renewing-development-of-ebola-smallpox-virus-mix-ukraine-suggests.html>.

5 Federal Register, Addition of Entities to the Entity List, and Revision of Entries on the Entity List, August 27, 2020, <www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/27/2020-18909/addition-of-entities-to-the-entity-list-and-revision-of-entries-on-the-entity-list>.

6 US Department of State, “Remarks of Dr. Christopher Ashley Ford, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation,” November 12, 2020, <www.state.gov/arms-control-and-international-security-since-january-2017/>.

7 Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas with Jens H. Kuhn, The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

8 Raymond A. Zilinskas, “The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today’s Russia,” Occasional Paper 11, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Defense University, July 18, 2016, <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/848207/the-soviet-biological-weapons-program-and-its-legacy-in-todays-russia/>.

9 Kathleen M. Vogel, “Pathogen Proliferation: Threats from the Former Soviet Bioweapons Complex,” Politics and the Life Sciences, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2000), pp. 3–16, <www.jstor.org/stable/4236558>.

10 Arms Control Association, “Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012–2018,” updated May 2020, <www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity>.

11 Gregory D. Koblentz, “Chemical-Weapon Use in Syria: Atrocities, Attribution, and Accountability,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 26, Nos. 5–6 (2019), pp. 575–98.

12 Ellen Barry and David E. Sanger, “Poisoned Door Handle Hints at High-Level Plot to Kill Spy, U.K. Officials Say,” New York Times, April 1, 2018, <www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/world/europe/russia-sergei-skripal-uk-spy-poisoning.html>; Nicola Slawson, “Skripals Poisoned by Novichok Dose up to 100g, Watchdog Says,” The Guardian, May 3, 2018, <www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/04/skripals-poisoned-by-novichok-in-liquid-form-watchdog-says>.

13 Anna Grebenyuk and Nikolai Ravin, “The Long-Term Development of Russian Biotech Sector,” Foresight, Vol. 19, No. 5 (2017), <www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/FS-06-2016-0024/full/html>.

14 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, “Reshaping U.S.–Russian Threat Reduction: New Approaches for the Second Decade,”2002, <https://carnegieendowment.org/files/ReshapingThreatReduction.pdf>.

15 Ibid.

16 David E. Gerber, Drew W. Rasco, Phat Le, Jingsheng Yan, Jonathan E. Dowell, and Yang Xie, “Predictors and Impact of Second-Line Chemotherapy for Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer in the United States: Real-World Considerations for Maintenance Therapy,” General Oncology, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2011), pp. 365–71.

17 OECD, “Government Researchers 2000–2018” (indicator), n.d., <www.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/government-researchers/indicator/english_c03b3052-en>.

18 Government of the Russian Federation, “Bio 2020: State Coordination Program for the Development of Biotechnology in the Russian Federation until 2020,” 2012.

19 Arthur Boyarov, Alina Osmakova, and Vladimir Popov, “Bioeconomy in Russia: Today and Tomorrow,” New Biotechnology, Vol. 60 (2021), pp. 36–43.

20 Stanislav Tkachenko, “Future Complicated for Russian Biotech,” Russia Beyond, October 30, 2014, <www.rbth.com/opinion/2014/10/30/future_complicated_for_russian_biotech_41045.html>.

21 Government of the Russian Federation, “The Results of the VIII Megagrant Competition: The List of Megagrant Winners,” Resolution No. 220, n.d., <http://p220.ru/en/>.

22 Ibid.

23 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, “Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans,” November 18, 2019, <www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-11-18%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20-%20China's%20Talent%20Recruitment%20Plans.pdf>.

24 Alexey Yablokov, “Academy ‘Reform’ Is Stifling Russian Science,” Nature, July 2, 2014, <www.nature.com/news/academy-reform-is-stifling-russian-science-1.15486>.

25 Quirin Schiermeir, “Russian Secret Service to Vet Research Papers,” Nature, October 20, 2015, <www.nature.com/news/russian-secret-service-to-vet-research-papers-1.18602>.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 OECD, “Gross Domestic Spending on R&D, 2000–2019,” <www.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d/indicator/english_d8b068b4-en>.

29 Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, 2019, <www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2019>.

30 National Science Board, National Science Foundation. Science and Engineering Indicators 2018.

31 Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, 2019, <www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/worlduniversity-rankings/2019>.

32 Zilinskas and Mauger, Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia, p. 207.

33 SIR, 2018, <www.scimagoir.com/index.php>.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Roger Roffey, “Russian Science and Technology Is Still Having Problems—Implications for Defense Research,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2013), <www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2013.779849?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=fslv20>.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Clarivate, “InCites Essential Science Indicators: Top Papers by Territory,” <https://clarivate.com/products/essential-science-indicators/>.

40 Igor Yegorov, “Post-Soviet Science: Difficulties in the Transformation of the R&D Systems in Russia and Ukraine,” Research Policy, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2009), pp. 600–09.

41 Zilinskas and Mauger, Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia, pp. 165–66.

42 Ibid.

43 Roger Roffey, “Russian Science and Technology Is Still Having Problems—Implications for Defense Research,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2(2013), <www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2013.779849?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=fslv20>.

44 I.V. Korobko, P.G. Georgiev, K.G. Skryabin, and M.P. Kirpichnikov, “GMOs in Russia: Research, Society and Legislation,” Acta Naturae, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2016), pp. 6–13.

45 Olga Dobrovidova, “Russia Joins in Global Gene-Editing Bonanza,” Nature, May 14, 2019, <www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01519-6>.

46 Ibid.

47 David Cyranoski, “Russian Biologist Plans More CRISPR-Edited Babies,” Nature, Vol. 570, No. 7760 (2019), <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31186565/>.

48 Ibid.

49 Jon Cohen, “Embattled Russian Scientist Sharpens Plans to Create Gene-Edited Babies,” Science, October 21, 2019, <www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/embattled-russian-scientist-sharpens-plans-create-gene-edited-babies>.

50 Zilinskas and Mauger, Biosecurity in Putin's Russia, pp. 165–66.

51 Olga Dobrovidova, “Calling Embryo Editing ‘Premature,’ Russian Authorities Seek to Ease Fears of a Scientist Going Rogue,” October 16, 2019, Stat, <www.statnews.com/2019/10/16/russia-health-ministry-calls-human-embryo-editing-premature/>.

52 Sabeera Bonala, “Countries Leading in Biotechnology Industry—Global Rankings,” Biostandups, November 29, 2016, <www.biostandups.com/bio-tech/countries-leading-biotechnology-industry-global-rankings>.

53 Guo-Qiang Chen and Yan Feng, eds., “Synthetic Biology in China, UK and US,” Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2016), pp. 215–15.

54 Quirin Schiermeier, “Russia Aims to Revive Science after Era of Stagnation,” Nature, March 18, 2020, <www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00753-7>.